The real overland migrations began with the 'forties. Before that time only very small groups of actual settlers crossed the country, almost all of them bound for Oregon. These earlier pioneers, with one exception, the Peoria company of 1839, never undertook the journey independently, but always attached themselves to bands of traders, who each year made their way to the Indian country. Thus had come the missionaries with Nathaniel J. Wyeth and with the American Fur Company's men. This was only natural; they were a few individuals, not encumbered with much baggage, and their primary object was to reach their destination with the least danger and the greatest possible expedition. With the 'forties come the actual pioneers, moving no longer as passengers attached to some trading expedition bound for the rendezvous of the fur-trappers, but independently, owning their own outfit, driving their own oxen, employing their own guide, travelling under their own power, so to speak. It was not an easy thing to do, particularly before a stock of common experience had been garnered, and, as was to be expected, a number of mistakes in organization, equipment, and route were made. It was early apparent to them, as they journeyed en masse, that common interest and common danger enjoined some kind of organization,[1] yet among the earlier companies (that of 1842, for example) this organization was so loose and discipline so lax that at times the emigrants were strung out over fifty miles or more of trail and greatly endangered thereby.[2] Again,
other bodies, by going to the other extreme and moving in tightly compact but huge masses, suffered from lack of sufficient feed for their stock.[3] It was in dealing with just such problems as these, with the matter of organization and the question of government, en route, that the overland emigrants manifested
- ↑ This need was felt very early. In the Oregonian and Indians' Advocate for April, 1839, p. 220, occurs the following (the italics are not in the original), "Western America will be settled, but it cannot be done safely or profitably by individual enterprise, and the strongest bonds should unite those who emigrate." Cf., also, J. W. Nesmith, Address, O. P. A. Transactions, 1875, p. 46.
- ↑ —See Medorem Crawford, Journal, Sources of the History of Oregon, Vol. I, Part 1, Eugene, 1897, p. 10, and passim.
- ↑ F. G. Young, The Oregon Trail, Oregon Historical Quarterly, I, 360 f.
